New research shows that most people feel adult at the age of 28. Happily, not
all of us

As is so often the way with these things, the age at which people start to feel old seems to get younger and younger each year; research has revealed that many believe they are grown-up by the time they turn 28. Twenty-eight! Being the grand old age of 32, this has come as news to me – here I am, staring down the barrel of motherhood and property ownership and I still don’t really know what an Isa or a hernia is.

Those taking part in the survey cited the following as proof that they were grown-up: their careers were more important than their sex lives (And? If you think your sex life is as important as your career then it’s probably only proof that you are a prostitute); they had stopped listening to Radio 1 and started listening to Radio 2 (people: a station that employs Anneka Rice and Steve Wright isn’t grown-up, it’s just a bit dated); they would rather go on holiday with a partner than with friends (a real grown-up would rather go on holiday with friends than with their partner); they stop wanting boyfriends/girlfriends and start wanting husbands/wives (as before: a proper adult stops wanting a husband/wife and starts wanting a boyfriend/girlfriend).

I know plenty of old people who don’t behave a day over three, and vice versa; the world is full of folk who have never acted their age or their shoe size. Every day I notice things that mark me out as no longer being young: the fact that I would be in the elderly category if I auditioned for The X Factor; the woman who asked her child to move out of the way for the “nice lady”; the realisation that a song I thought came out six months ago was actually released in 2003. Sadly, none of these things are proof that I am a grown-up – they simply show that I am getting older.

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Growing bucket-loads of cannabis does not seem terribly adult behaviour, but that’s exactly what sixtysomethings Susan Cooper and Michael Foster have been up to. Officers found 159 plants, thought to be worth about £20,000, in their Lincoln farmhouse, while the profits of this criminal enterprise are said to have been as much as £400,000. But not for these drug barons a life of fast cars and designer clothes – instead, the couple gave most of their money to the residents of a Kenyan village. A young man called Wilson, who had been given days to live after developing an infection in his leg, had his amputation paid for, and then there were the children the couple supported through school, not to mention the computers they bought for a hospital.

If their tale seems familiar that is because it has been written many times – in the American comedy Weeds, a widow sells marijuana to support her family, while in Breaking Bad a chemistry teacher dying of cancer turns his talents to making crystal meth. Meanwhile, the 2000 film Saving Grace saw Brenda Blethyn grow cannabis after her husband’s suicide. Cooper and Foster have just begun three years as guests of Her Majesty, but they can rest assured that when they get out there is a film or a book in the saga.

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Astonishing news from Wales, where the student union bar at Aberystwyth University has closed due to a lack of customers. Apparently the young folk there prefer to drink at coffee bars. Says student president Ben Meakin: “More students are drinking coffee during the day while studying – and fewer are going out late into the night… so the university has chosen to improve the main union building to make it a more appealing living room on campus during the daytime.”

I don’t know. Where I live, the price of a mocha-what’s-its-name is enough to drive you to drink; I think I even read somewhere that cocaine is now cheaper than coffee. Still, there is one thing to say about the young students of Aberystwyth, and that is this: they really are extraordinarily grown-up.